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Descriptions of blood and injuries
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Two more turns and then the whole ordeal would be over. "Left at the next intersection!" Alicia reached up with her sore right hand to clutch the "oh heavens handle" above the door. Mr. Cattywampus clutched Alicia's thighs with all four sets of claws just as tight. In the driver's seat, Janice white-knuckled the steering wheel with already pale hands and hung a hard left with barely any brake. "Okay, this next turn comes up sudde- left!" Alicia shrank in her seat inside the speedy silver coupe, hoping none of the neighbors happened to be looking out their windows. "Okay, yeah it's this one here. You can just pull in betw- yep."
The car screeched to a halt, throwing Alicia forward hard enough that the seatbelt locked. Her feline passenger hardly budged. The other Kat tonight hurt me worse, but at least she didn't expect me to feed her. Deadpan stare. Janice asked, "This the place?"
Alicia released her death-grip on the O.H. handle as she said with a chuckle, "Wow, you really tore through the neighborhood." She unbuckled her seatbelt and in a quieter voice continued, "I hope we didn't disturb the neighbors."
With a roll of her eyes, Janice dismissed the concern, "Yeah, it would suck to have someone take out their frustrations on you for no reason, huh?"
The worn-out wrestler looked at Janice and said softly, "I'm sorry Party Girl treats you like that."
"Are you trying to be my therapist?" shot back the assistant in a voice precision-targeted at the humiliation gland. "You're a cat-sitter."
The back of Alicia's head burned like a furnace. "Um," offered Alicia in her own defense. For a moment, Alicia pondered a way to ask for help that would irritate Janice the least. Right up there with the meaning of life. "Yeah. Uh, right. Can you help me bring all this stuff in, please? I'm already holding a cat," said Alicia, reaching for the door. She clarified, "We're holding onto each other."
Talking to Janice felt like a staring contest. "Can? Debatable. And to answer your next question: no."
Frustration mixed with a bit of anger flashed across Alicia's face as she shot back, "Janice, come on!"
Party Girl's assistant glanced momentarily at the kitty supplies in the back before locking eyes again with her passenger. Alicia pushed the door open and got out of the car with only three sets of claws in her arms. Then came the gym bag, onto a shoulder–the wrong shoulder, she realized with a wince–and then the other shoulder. Alicia needed to get to the backseat. "I give up, how do you move this thing forward?" She and Janice both noticed the fresh, dark red bloodstain about the size of a CD on the passenger seat around the height of Alicia's mid-back. Unflinching deadpan stare, eyes of pure hate.
"Button under the seat," replied Janice after a harrowing pause. With a grunt, Alicia leaned down and found the button, causing her head to snap hard to the right as the passenger seat hit her like a dodgeball. "Watch your head," Janice warned seconds later. Alicia wouldn't give her the satisfaction of an angry glare.
Cat food and toys into the gym bag, small jug of kitty litter in the litterbox, litterbox under the right arm, cat-sized sailor suit under her chin. Alicia looked down at the automatic food and water dispenser in the back and felt defeated. "I'm just going to use bowls."
"Party Girl will be pissed, and not just at me," warned Janice. She seemed to relent with a roll of her eyes when she saw the broken look on the young wrestler's face. "Whatever."
"You drove in pretty fast. Think you can find your way out?" asked Alicia, less out of concern for Janice than a desire not to see her again.
"Duh. It's easy. Bye," said the assistant as Alicia shut the door with her foot. She wondered if Janice ever got a headache from rolling her eyes so much.
"Well good luck!" Alicia shouted back. Then cringed when a light turned on in a house down the street. "Sorry!" she whispered, then turned and stepped into her personal gopher hole. "Fizzbuzz!" hissed the aching, weary temporary cat owner. Cat-borrower, perhaps. It hardly seemed fair Alicia should have to carry Mr. Cattywampus since she wasn't the one who could see in the dark. There was the narrow tunnel in the thicket of branches she never got around to trimming. Definitely before spring comes, vowed Alicia and then immediately forgot. Her feline cargo seemed to perk up as they drew low to the ground as Alicia tried in vain to shrink her encumbered profile. A few steps in, she felt a tug on her right braid. Something had caught on her hair, causing her to lose her chin-grip on the cat-sized sailor suit.
Alicia nearly dropped her provisional cat as she released her grip on the litterbox and cat litter under her arm. The loud clatter as it hit the ground earned her another four sets of nervous scratches. She reached up with her right hand to try and dislodge whatever it was when something pierced the tip of her finger. Reflexively, Alicia pulled her hand back as she sucked air through her teeth when something similarly sharp seemed to catch on her sleeve. Whatever it was, she could feel it scratching her right tricep under her jersey. Something was wrong. She paused and tried to back out when another caught the left shoulder of her jersey. With a grunt of effort, Alicia tried yanking her right arm free of its snare, but the grip remained taut.
"Please, please don't run away," whimpered the cat chaperone. "Please just let one thing go right and please don't run away from me." She slowly lowered the chubby pink-orange Persian to the ground before inching her left hand toward the side pocket of her gym bag and unzipping it. The shivering, nervous feline perched on its haunches at Alicia's feet. A trembling hand slipped into the side pocket before hesitating and moving to the main zipper and opening up the sports duffel. She reached for the open five-pound bag of Purrfect Mewtrition and overturned the entire contents inside her gym bag. Clicking her tongue, she invited the eager feline in to warm up and chow down. Her hand went back to the side pocket and out came the pink mobile phone. She flipped it open.
At first, nothing looked out of the ordinary. Then something gleamed as it caught the dim light. And it wasn't just one. She could make out at least a dozen shiny, thin, metal hooks hung with fishing line from the branches of the foliage tunnel. Alicia didn't want to know how many more awaited deeper inside. She turned the phone back around so she could reach the keypad with her thumb and dialed the house. "Please be home and please pick up. Please be home and please pick up. Please be-"
"Hello?"
"Robert!" cried Alicia and let out a sigh of relief she didn't know she was holding. "Oh thank goodness. I need you to come to my side of the house. Bring some scissors or a knife or something that you can cut with. And a flashlight. Two flashlights, if you have them. Please hurry. Please, I promise this is an emergency."
There was a pause. "Yeah," came the reply, his concern palpable. She could hear the sound of Robert grabbing his keys. "Yeah, I'm coming. Are you okay?"
"I'll be okay if you get here fast," said Alicia, assuring herself more than Robert. "When you see me, do not come into the bushes. Do you understand?"
Robert's concern seemingly turned to worry as Alicia could now hear her housemate banging around his place looking for something. "Okay, I understand," replied Robert, hopefully not too distracted. "Alicia, I have to go to the kitchen to find something. I promise I will be there as soon as I can."
Alicia's teeth chattered as she knelt in the freezing cold. She had expected the unseasonably mild weather of midday to carry into the evening; it very much hadn't. Instead, she could see her breath in front of her. Her calves began to ache from maintaining a hunched-over position, and her shivers turned to trembling as the cold burrowed into her.
"Alicia! Alicia! I'm coming!" Robert's voice grew louder as he got closer. The neighbors could go take a flying leap if they didn't like it. Those panicked shouts sounded sweeter than music–Keven Se7en, eat your heart out. Pounding footsteps slowed to a stop behind her. "Are you okay?"
"Shine the flashlight in here. Point it above me at the branches, okay?" she instructed. The brilliant beam illuminated nearly the entire tunnel. Alicia had been right: she didn't want to know how many more fishhooks were back there. Way more than a dozen - at least 50, probably more - swayed in unison in the occasional breeze.
"Holy shit," whispered Robert.
Alicia wanted to nod. She was nodding on the inside. "I'm stuck. I've got three hooked to me that I can feel. Be really, really careful." She heard Robert shuffle into the bushes behind her. "Just letting you know I have a cat with me."
The shuffling stopped. "What?"
"Nothing. Sorry. Just-" Alicia felt the tension pulling on her hair give way and the tickle of loose fishing line against the back of her neck. "Thank you."
The line snagged on her left shoulder fell loose as Robert forced a chuckle. "What are friends for?" he said, cutting Alicia's right arm free of the line. "Careful. Those hooks are still in there. I just got you free from the branches."
Alicia breathed a sigh of relief as her housemate reached an arm around her left side and handed her a red flashlight the size of a thermos. "Okay," said Robert. "Now what?"
"Remember that cat I mentioned? I need you to be so gentle, but can you take the gym bag from me? The cat's in there. I'll explain when we get to kitchen."
There was a pause before Robert spoke up, "You aren't bringing your work home with you, are you?"
Alicia's eyes went wide. She gave herself a second to regain her composure; she didn't want to lie to Robert, but she didn't want to tell the truth if she didn't have to. "Why?" asked Alicia, looking over her shoulder.
The scruffy, unshorn hero held up his right index finger wrapped in a bandage. "You'll never guess what I found in our mailbox." The truth it was, then.
"Let's get in out of the cold," said Alicia, shrugging off the gym bag and placing it delicately on the freezing sidewalk. She reached inside and retrieved her keys from the bottom of the bag and shoved them into the right pocket of her torn jeans. She realized she was trembling not only on account of the cold, but the massive modern art horror of her front bushes. Mr. Cattywampus would be fine with multiple layers of Alicia's good clothes she left in there, not wanting to get her blood all over them. She lowered herself to her belly, groaning as all her bruises, cuts, and aches reawoke in the effort. Alicia gripped the thermos-flashlight in her left hand, placed the cat litter jug inside theitter box, and pulled herself forward with her legs and elbows in a military crawl to her side-door-front-door, pushing the litterbox in front of her.
Robert called behind her, confused, "What are you doing?"
Alicia hollered back, just as confused, "I've got to unlock the door. I can't get in from your side."
There was a pause. "You lock your side's kitchen door?" asked Robert.
There was a similar pause. "You don't?"
Robert tried to lift the mood, "We're different people. It's whatever." She could hear the shuffle of footsteps approaching the bag and the sound of nylon being lifted by a shoulder strap. "Be safe. You don't know what else you could find on the way in."
Somehow, Alicia's stomach felt sicker. She tried to ignore how much it hurt and the creeping nervous nausea and kept crawling forward. In the fractured concrete path, about four feet ahead, she could see at least two fishhooks glinting in the light. A couple feet closer. Nope. There were three. Ouch. Alicia sucked in through her teeth again as she slowly lifted her right arm and saw the tip of the hook lodged in her forearm just enough for the second barb to sink its hook in. She wasn't going to risk letting it dig in any deeper. Blinding, piercing pain radiated from the new wound. The horrid thing already hurt worse than any bump onto thumbtacks. Worse than when she stabbed her finger on an exposed nail when she was 6. It felt like the barb was rubbing against a raw, exposed nerve. Breathe in, breathe out. Alicia set down the flashlight in front of her, pointing it back diagonally towards her arm to avoid casting a shadow as much as possible. Breathe in, breathe out. She eyed the problem, looking for the best way to extract it. Breathe in, breathe out. There was probably a best way, but the freshly hurting wrestler had never gone fishing before.
Same direction out as in, she supposed. Firm grip on the hook close to the skin. She wanted to get it out in one try. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in- "AAAAAAAAA!!!!!" cried Alicia in the bushes out of season as more of her blood poured from yet another open wound. That probably lit up a few more neighbors' windows. She flicked the hook away into the foliage and instantly regretting making it some poor animal's problem. "Frumpy dresses!" Alicia curteous-cussed. Three blood tastings in a day was already at least one too many, regardless of whether one of the tasters was her. She did go back for seconds, though, and brought the runny forearm to her mouth, trying to somehow drink out the pain. If any animal was going to taste the sidewalk runoff, she hoped they would wait until at least 12:01 AM out of respect.
She shuffled forward a bit more, plucked the other hooks off the ground, and carefully bundled the two together between her thumb and forefinger. The end of the tunnel was only about three feet ahead. Two feet. One. "Thank goodness," she sighed. One careful step at a time, Alicia descended the stairs. No hooks hanging above the door sill. That seemed obvious. Maybe one for the suggestion box. At the bottom of the six ill-lit steps, Alicia fumbled her house key into her hand and let herself in. Jenetti caught a picture-perfect pass as the sore wrestler groaned and grunted her way up the stairs and through the door to the kitchen. She already heard Robert trying to negotiate with their - her - guest from the top of the stairs.
"Hey. Hey! Off the counter!" begged an already exasperated Robert. "Alicia, can you please?"
"That's because you put the bag with the food in it on the countertop," she explained, approaching the feline and her gym bag. She slung the strap over one shoulder and lifted Mr. Cattywampus in both arms, then cradled it to her chest as she walked towards the open door on her side. "You just have to know how they thin- ow! Little meanie!" cried Alicia as Mr. Cattywampus bit her on the hand. She dropped the cat to the ground, which landed characteristically. She tossed the bag out the kitchen door and shut it. "Sorry."
"Cute cat," said her rescuer. "I think I can guess who it belongs to. What's her name?"
"Mr. Cattywampus," said Alicia and paused for a beat. "Her?"
Robert blurted out a surprised laugh. "Don't tell me she- wow. Wow, wow, wow."
"Party- Giselle probably just liked the name and didn't care who she gave it to."
Robert's eyes boggled. "Whoa! What happened to your tooth?" Alicia gave him a "seriously?" face. "Match. Got it." On the dining room card table lay a paper towel with a dozen or so fishhooks spread out on it, to which Alicia added the two in her hand before reaching up and carefully extracting the fishhook from her tightly pulled-back hair, sleeve, and shoulder and added those to the collection. For the first time since they met, Robert didn't take it upon himself to lighten the mood. "So, yeah. Wanna fill me in?"
Alicia took a deep breath. No way would he believe the entire tale. "The long story short is that I made enemies with a crazy, catwalk-dwelling wrestler-slash-stalker who uses fishhooks as her calling card. I saw a strange car follow us when Party Girl brought me home that night. I think she followed us here."
Her housemate chuckled to himself before responding, "That succinct explanation simultaneously made a lot of sense and is maybe the most insane thing I've ever heard." Robert furrowed his eyebrows. "You accused me of setting Ralph loose in the house!"
She snapped back in her own defense, "I didn't accuse!"
"Your eyes did accuse," he reminded Alicia. "And then this followed you home? I supported you, but do not rope me into this. I did not ask to be involved," continued Robert, almost pleading. "I'm not tough like you. Please. I don't want any part of it."
Alicia's eyes sank to the ground. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep my wrestling life and my real life separate."
"They're the same thing," Robert replied. "There's just you. There's only real life. There are consequences to your decisions. It's not fair to make me face your consequences with you." He paused and looked conflicted whether he should say what he said next. "I'm going to look for another place to live. We can still be friends, but I don't feel safe living with you anymore," he said with genuine sadness in his voice. "We had a good thing."
Not only hadn't her heart hit bottom yet, it hadn't even hit terminal velocity. She pursed her lips and gave her soon-to-be-former housemate a little nod. "I understand. And I know it won't change your mind, but I want to take care of this, right now," said Alicia, gesturing at the paper towel covered in shiny fishhooks.
"How?" Robert asked.
Alicia buried her face in one impressive hand. "... Can I ask something really selfish?"
"Please do."
"Can you drive me back to the Plunj?" asked Alicia, now the one almost pleading. "I know it's a long drive, but it's a long show tonight. We can make it if we hurry."
With a hesitant nod and tone in his voice, Robert replied, "Yeah."
"Thank you," said Alicia with a guilty look. "Sorry," said Alicia, grabbing the bottle of liquid dish soap from beside the kitchen sink. "I need to go get a few things together. Give me like 10 minutes," said Alicia, opening the door and suddenly seeming to remember something. "Can you grab a garbage bag to throw over the passenger seat-back? If you don't understand why, you will when I walk away."
Behind a mop of shaggy hair, Robert cocked an eyebrow. "You're not planning on fighting anyone else tonight, are you?"
Alicia's expression turned severe. "No. It's not going to be a fight."
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